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Hearing Scheduled: Did OSHA Do Enough to Protect World Trade Center Rescue Workers?

The House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on Sept. 12 to examine if OSHA did enough to protect workers from safety and health hazards at Ground Zero after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and on the role of the city of New York in protecting 9/11 workers.

Six years since the attack, a growing number of rescue and recovery workers are developing respiratory ailments caused by exposure to toxic air at the site, which some OSHA critics claim is a direct result of OSHA failing to enforce workplace health and safety standards.

The hearing, “Why Weren’t World Trade Center Rescue and Recovery Workers Protected?” will feature testimony from Philip J. Landrigan, chairman of the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, Mt. Sinai Medical Center; Patricia Clark, regional administrator, OSHA Region II; Dr. James Melius, director, New York State Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund; Brian A. Jackson, Ph.D., associate director, Homeland Security Program, RAND Corp.; and Freddy Cordero, a worker who who developed a respiratory illness as a result of his recovery work at Ground Zero.

The hearing starts at 10 a.m. and will be held in the House Education and Labor Committee Hearing Room, 2175 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C.